Rueless
by KatnissEverdeen
Summary: As this tiny girl ventures through the terrible games of a county called Panem she gets caught. Sadly she dies there. But if she is dead, it has to be over. Thats what we thought.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone! I've had this story up for a while but I took it down for editing, if you haven't read it already then please do! But for those who have, this chapter is pretty much the same minus some spelling errors.**

I am hopping from branch to branch in search of the only friend I have in these cruel games. We were on a mission to destroy the camp of other children known as Careers. My job was to set of some leafy fires, hoping that the Careers would see the smoke and fall into our trap. Our plan worked perfectly, from my point of view. Shortly after the Careers found my first fire I heard bombs explode. I think to myself 'what type of weapons were in the Cornucopia this year?' I was too scared to try and get anything there during the first blood bath so I have no clue what the Gamemakers had in store for us, tributes, this year.

What weapons, food, or supplies that are given to us during the games all goes through a group of heartless monsters called Gamemakers. The Gamemakers also control what happens in this hellhole of an arena. From the shape, to the climate, to the firestorm, to the birds that I ate for breakfast this morning, it was all the Gamesmakers doing.

If the Gamemakers had put bombs in the Cornucopia I don't know, all I know is that my friend is in trouble. If a bomb that big is set off that close to you, something must be hurt. 'What if the blast shattered her brain? What if she flew back and broke her ribs on a tree? What if she hit her back?' I think to myself, trying to be as quiet as possible. I fly through the trees worrying quietly to myself, not really paying the attention that is required for these maneuvers. I slip on thin branch and start to fall. I grip at anything that I can reach and surprisingly I land on my feet. I look behind me quickly to make sure that the Careers are still at my second fire, I am nearing the third and last one I have to light, after that I will go and look for my friend. I start to run to the third fire and then I hear it.

The cannon. The cannons blow when a tribute dies.

"A tribute," I mumble. What a terrible name for us to have, it sounds like we willing came here. No. I would never in my entire life voluntarily come to these games. Unless one of my sisters was chosen, I am the oldest of six children, and I have to take care of them, not die in these games at the mere age of twelve. Only if my sisters were chosen would I volunteer, thats what my friend did. Her sister was my age, 12, it was our first reaping, but it is also my last. It would be her last too, if her sister had not volunteered. The cannons eco hits my ear, pulling me back to reality. What if it was my friend? Fear instantly fills my entire body. I decide to climb up a tree and wait until tomorrow to light my next fire.

When it gets dark the Gamemakers fill the sky of the arena with a picture and the district of the tributes that died that day. If my friend really did die today then there is no need to light the third fire and give off my position in the arena.

I eat the rest of the rabbit that I started this morning. I sit strapped eighty feet in the air by the belt that came with the matching outfits that everyone was wearing. I rest my head on a branch that is next to the one I am already resting on. I remember the nights where my friend would let me sleep in her sleeping bag with her and waking up, using her as a pillow. She was like the big sister I never had. I know I remind her of the sister she saved, and I am ok with that. It makes me miss home and my mom. Oh how I want my mom! At the thought of her I start to cry. Yes, I start crying for my mommy.

"Mommy!" I cry into my knees. "Mom! Dad! Take me home! I want to come home! I want to come home!" I start to sob that sentence for what seems like hours.

I hear the national anthem. "Panem", I say out loud. "Panem, the place where dreams come true, and children are murdered my other children, who, like the rest of us, are innocent and belong at home eating dinner with our families, seeing our siblings grow up, having children that we know will be out of harms way."

The anthem fades as I look nervously to the sky as the face of the dead tribute flashes across the sky. I see a boy from district 3. My friend is still alive.

I fall asleep quickly, with the weight of my friend's death now off my shoulders. I make a mental list on the things I need to accomplish: 1) find some breakfast 2) light the other fire 3) get away to the safe spot my friend and I agreed on 4)don't die.

I wake up to the songs of a mockingjay. I smile the first genuine smile since I was reaped to long ago. I get down and start walking to the next fire that I had set up yesterday. I go back to daydreaming about leaving this awful place and I didn't notice the big rope that stood in my path. I absentmindedly stepped over it and found myself hanging upside down from my left foot. I hear the crackle of a boys laugher. "So looky what I've got here!", the boy sneered.

"Let me go!" I manage to croak out. With all the blood in my body rushing to my head it was hard to talk.

"Sure thing," the boy swipes with a dagger and cuts the rope holding me in half. I fall to the ground in a heap with a crunch, as I try to get up he throws a net over my thrashing body.

"Katniss! Katniss! Katniss!" I scream my friends name at the top of my lungs. I hear her call back as she crashes through the under growth of the forest. She runs into the clearing just as the boy looks at me with his unforgiving black eyes. He takes his spear and jams it up my rib cage just as I hear Katniss scream my name.

"Rue! NO!"


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter used to be longer but I split it and the other half is now chapter three, but not much editing don't to this chapter either**

"Rue! No! No! No!" Says Katniss, my only friend.

She was the one that fed me the biggest feast I have ever had. She is the one

who let me sleep in her sleeping bag. She is the one who let me use her as a

pillow. She is the own that I have been worrying about all night. She is the

one that came crashing through the woods, most likely putting herself in great

danger of being heard or seen just to come help me.

"Katniss..." I cry as the worst pain I've ever felt rips through my chest.

I hear the gurgling of something to my left, I slowly and painfully turn my head to the side and see and one of Katniss's arrows sticking up from the boy who brought this agony down on me.

Katniss scurried over to me and slowly untangles my limbs from the net I am intertwined in. I try to be quiet but I cannot suppress the moan of pain that escapes my lips. I look in her eyes and see she is crying. I have only been her ally for a day or two, but I remind her of the sister that got chosen for these games. She takes her gray eyes off my brown ones to take a look at my wound and I can see in her expression that it is beyond any repair that she can give in the games.

I think of my family. My little brother, Zachary, he was the youngest of us six, and he absolutely adored me. He would follow me around my family's small house that was being used way beyond its capacity. Sometimes in the summer my sisters and I would sleep outside. Zach was my favorite little boy and I was his favorite big sister, he would do whatever I did and with his little two-year-old hobbles he even tried to come to work with me once, not a good idea on his part.

I cannot bear the fact that they are all watching my last minutes. How much physical pain I am in doesn't even compare to the emotional turmoil I am going through, thinking that my parents, sisters, brothers, and most of all little Zach have to see this. I cannot show them how much I am suffering. I close my eyes trying to get my mind off the pain and my family.

"Sing to me," I ask Katniss to do this as my dying wish. I have heard her sing, she doesn't like to share it and she only sang when she thought I wasn't listening. Her voice was beautiful it sounds like a thousand tons of sugar swimming in a lake of honey. It is the sweetest thing in the world; I wish she would sing more often. I need to hear it one more time.

I know that she doesn't want to sing, but she knows that I am dying so her voice starts to come in as slow peaceful pattern of notes, cracking every once in a while from her tears that seem to be a never ending flow. I have opened my eyes so I can she her face as she slowly gains more confidence and gets louder in her song. I close my eyes and let her lullaby take me over. She sings of a far off meadow, a place where the danger doesn't exist, a place where I can live. A place I can live without fear of the harsh laws, starvation, sickness, and most of all, The Hunger Games.

As Katniss finishes her song I feel like I am drowning, I want to come up but there is something stuck into my chest that won't let me go, all I can think of is pain. I try to keep from screaming, I remember that I am trying to seem like I don't hurt. I cannot remember whom from though. I kick my legs and grab at the light above my head, which is where the life is. This water like substance seems to be taking all my memories. I don't remember who I am or what I am doing, I stop fighting the pain and it takes me deeper. Under me is nothing more than a dark, black nothingness. My chest feels tight, I try to rip what ever is in my lungs out but it is too heavy. It keeps pulling me downward, I start to get scared of the nothingness and try to get swim away from it but as I do so I start to here a frantic voice above around me, it eco's through my mind. It reminds me of something, but I can't seem to put it together with the nothing that seeps throughout my brain. As I take a painful and hard breath, I know that it's my last. I feel pain and then nothing.

Nothing more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Not much editing done here, but if you want to please read!**

I sit up and no pain hits me. I reach my hand up and rub the part of my chest that was in so much pain just moments earlier, nothing, just something that feels leathery. I open my eyes and look at the soft blue sky. I take a slow breath smelling the lush green grass that surrounds me.

I look down and realize what I am wearing its a white dress that flows loosely to my knees, it has soft brown leather circling my stomach from my waist to my arms. The leather is sleeveless and tight enough to stay on but not enough to hurt me. The white dress loosely bags up over at the top of the leather and has sleeves that swish in the breeze a coupe of inches from my shoulders. I lift my feet and see them bare and all the scars gone and I look to the rest of me and see them scar less and untouched, I see my hair in soft brown ringlets ending near my elbows.

I love this. I am in pure heaven! I have the perfect body that I always dreamed of having, I have the clothes that I designed and suggested to my stylist, who blew them off as something that would look terrible. I look gorgeous. I close my eyes listening to the lulling songs that birds sing, I am the most content that I have ever felt.

There is no wind, not even one-cloud dances across the sky. I lean back and let the aroma of the grass and the choruses of the birds overtake me. Through the daze I feel the suns warm breath on my cheeks. I know it is safe here. Nothing can harm me.

I am starting to like this place. I have no work, I'm not hungry, and I'm not thirsty. I know nothing can go wrong here. Until I hear it.

A cannon.

It feels like I haven't heard a cannon in a long time. I let my head wonder back to listening to the birds and forget about the cannon sound. "It was nothing," I tell myself out loud p, nor remembering its actual meaning. As I drift back into sleep I start to feel it.

Rain.

I sit up and look to the sky. Not a cloud. I feel another rain drop on my cheek. I lift my hands to my face but feel nothing but smooth. I get up and start running. I random jolt of adrenaline rushing through me. All I knew was that I wanted the rain to leave me alone.

I find a tree, a magnificent tree. It looks to be millions of years old. I have never seen one before, but somehow I know the word it's called a Banyan. It looks like it is made up of many vines wrapped around it. It looks easy to climb. It is in the middle of a field of clovers and I walk around the base of the tree.

I feel another drop, and another. I roll into a ball so the rain will hit my back and not my face. My cheek feels wet again. Just as I am starting to get used to the random rain it stops. The mysterious rain is warm. I feel one of the remaining ghost drops roll onto my lips, I lick them and it tastes salty, like tears.

I am scared out of my wits at the moment so I climb high into the tree and rest on large branch with my feet dangling off the edge. I start to wonder where I am. I try with all my might to remember who I am, what I am doing here, but I can't. I feel alone. But this is a good alone. It give me a sense of self security.

I am so happy to have a place that is all mine, I leap off the tree I have been resting on and I run. I don't run to anywhere, I just run. I stretch out my now flawless arms and spin in circles with my face to they sky, I have the biggest grin I think I have ever worn. Why not be happy? I am in a perfect world with a perfect body.

As I spin I don't notice the flowers that start to adorn my body. I start to feel them tickle my ankles and I look down and see the most beautiful wild flowers appearing around my feet like anklets. They don't grow up from the ground or fall from the sky, just like the tears, they just appear. I watch as they appear covering my ankles, going up and covering my waist, my wrists, and my head like a crown.

I itched to see the rest of my wonderful new world. I don't remember if I have always been here or if like the tears and flowers, just appeared. As I race down this never ending meadow looking for an end I hear him.

"Hey, Rue!" That voice, I know that voice, but I don't know whom he is talking to, I turn around anyway to see if who ever yelled is talking to me. I see him. But he is different. I don't know how I know him, I just do. I don't know how he got here, or how he found me, all I know is that I have a feeling that he is dead.


	4. Chapter 4

**I did a lot of editing to this chapter. I filled in something's and I changed the boys name from Mitchael to Mitchell because I got tired of the spell check changing it. The concept is pretty much the same but you can reread this if you want the new details.**

I give the boy a confused look. I have seen no other human beings in this place; I must have been running for hours! How did I not see him? While I am questioning myself the boy starts to slowly walk to me. I think that he is as equally scared and confused as I am. When he is about ten yards from me I snap out of my daze and look at him for the first time.

He has chocolate brown hair that shimmers with a hint of blonde in the sun. His brown locks are straight and long, they come to an end just at the middle of his eyes. His eyes, his most genuine feature, they are big and a deep watery blue. The blue is only a ring though; it circles around a grey center that seems to be shimmering in the sun. His eyes contrast beautifully into his sleek and absolutely flawless skin. His perfectly shaped nose runs down into his full pinkish lips. His body seems like mine, perfect. As he gets closer I can see that he's ripped, his muscles bulging out of clothes that seem close to mine. He looks like he is ready to fight of any attacker.

He steps closer and I take time to notice his outfit. He has white shorts that run to his knee, he seems to have the same leathery armor over his chest like mine, but mine is fitted to me and his is fitted to the muscled abdomen of this young man that I somehow know. "Rue," he says as he stops just feet in front of me. "Rue, its great to see you! I was starting to think I was alone!"

I feel the heat of his body radiating off him. "Um, sorry but, who are you? You look like someone I know, but I thought he was dead". It cant me Mitchell.

"Oh, he's dead alright!" The boy's shoulders shake as he laughs.

"Ok, but, once again, who are you?"

"Rue! You know me! We grew up together! I'm Mitchell!"

I started to get a very bad feeling about all of this. I don't remember growing up. I don't remember anything! I look up at him with pleading eyes "I don't remember." Is all I manage to croak out before I pass out.

I sit up, and look around for Katniss, there is a fire going that she must have started when she came back from the Career camp. I have to tell her about the crazy dream I had, it was so real that I really felt the pain. I dreamt that a boy had shoved his spear in my rib cage and I died. The dream got fuzzy around that time, but it got better when I got to the most beautiful place, I had no flaws, there was no danger, there was even my best friend. I miss him so much; he died in the fields the year before I was chosen. It was so crazy that I laugh about it to myself. I think it was that rabbit I ate before bed, the Gamemakers probably tainted them.

As I turn my head to the side when I hear a sigh, thinking it was Katniss, I started to explain the dream. "Oh my gosh, Katniss! I had the craziest dream there was this boy and he wa-" I stop abruptly when I realize that it's not Katniss. It's the boy from my dream, Mitchell. "It wasn't a dream"

"No, but you seem to have gotten your memory back."

I take a sharp breath when he mentions that, he's right. I remember everything, the games, the pain, my family, what the cannon sound meant. "Am I dead?" I ask him, already knowing the answer but not wanting to believe it.

"That's what I've been telling myself," sighed Mitchell in a depressed tone. "I remember everything, I twisted by knee when I was out detassl'n the corn", a country twang ringing through his voice. "Some Peacekeeper came and beat me. I felt pain but then just... here. I don't know what's going on. I have been trying to find a way out, people, or a city. You are the first person that I have encountered."

I remember what he is talking about. I have missed him so much, and now he is sitting in front of me. I haven't even so much as hugged him. I remember his comment about me being the first human he has seen here, I automatically scramble up from where I am resting by the fire and leap into his arms. He is not expecting this and stubbles back, but not loosing his balance. He recovers shortly and embraces me. After a few minutes of just holding him, feeling his warmth, accepting that fact that he is actually here, hugging me, I try to pull back but he wont let go. "Mitchell! Let go!" I say with a laugh.

"No! I've missed you Rue! Do you really expect me to let you go this quickly?"

"I'm not even gonna answer that question."

"You just did."

I scoff and lightly hit the back of his armor. "You look different."

"A good different?"

"Nah, the bad different."

"What! I try hard to stay this pretty!"

"Just deflating your ego. Your not twelve anymore," I tell him. Its true, last time i saw him she was a scrawny kid whose feet were too big. When i see him now he is well over a foot taller than me, his muscles have covered his bones and he looks like some of the Careers that weight train their whole lives. His face is different too, the baby fat that made his cheeks round had thinned and you could see the strong bones.

"No, I'm not." He answered like it was a question.

"How..."

"I hated being twelve you know that. I was the same skinny kid here too for a while, then I started experimenting. I can be anything I want here, I can look how I want."

Mitchell hated being a kid. He always liked to be strong but was never able to lift enough to help his older brothers with their work. I remember sitting through hours of rants from him as he promised that he would be buff like his brothers. Looks like he finally got his wish.

"So I can just be anything?". I asked, genuinely curious as thoughts of me if a different body raced through my mind.

"Anything." He let me go and scooted closer to the fire. The sun had set and the sky was a dark blue but the flames cut through the oncoming darkness.

"Tell me about here," I say in a voice I have never heard myself make, I felt content in my best friends arms, I missed him so much too, I never want him to let me go.

"Well, I don't really know, like I said. I thought I died in that field, but I am here instead. How did you get here?"

"Kinda like you," I answer back, not wanting to tell him about my games.

"And how is that?" He asks me, not happy with my other answer. I scoot closer to him so we are sitting side-by-side, our arms touching, watching the fire. We used to do that a lot, before the day he died broke us apart.

Both of our houses were way too small, so the kitchen was outside. Some nights he would come to my house, others I would go to his. In the fall and winter we would sit by the fire for hours, just watching it slowly burn down and we would talk. We knew more about the other than we knew about ourselves.

In the summer we would sit in the garden, watching the stars. He would leave when my sisters came out, he never really liked it when some one would interrupt us. When we went to his house, one of his seven other siblings would call him, when we went to mine one of my five siblings would come. He only had one sister of his that he was really fond of, Jocelyn, she was only four months old when he died. After he died his sister slowly got sick. Four months later she died. I don't want to mention anything about home or the games. He would get worried if he knew what our families have had to go through, even more so that I had to experience that games. "Tell me how you got here!" Mitchell grunted angrily at me through my silence.

"Kinda like you," I repeat.

"You got beat to death by a Peacekeeper?" He snaps sarcastically.

"No, not really."

"How did you die?"

"S-S-Spear up my rib cage." I stutter out, Mitchell always does this. He somehow breaks down my barriers and gets to know everything.

"A WHAT! HOW THE HELL DO U GET A SPEAR STUCK IN YOUR RIB CAGE?" Mitchell's out bursts always scared me, but I missed them so much I didn't get scared this time. "Rue! I want the truth!"

"Well, I-a... gotreapedforthehungergames" I manage to mumble.

"You what?"

"I got reaped for the Hunger Games!" I practically shout at him in my anger at myself for not keeping the secret longer. That was probably the only thing that I hated about Mitchell, you never could keep a secret. It was like he could read someone's mind, no matter how closed their book was, he could read it.

"You-you what?" Mitchell turned to me, his eyes screaming with sorrow. "You couldn't be picked! It was only your first year of reaping! This...this... NO!" He jumps to his feet. The fire reflecting off the tears that have found home in his eyes and his now bulging muscles give him a frightening look.

"Lots of kids get picked at twelve. I took a lot of tesserae. There was a huge chance of me being picked. The luck was just not in my favor." Mitchell was only six months older than me back in real life. His birthday was right before the readings. When he was twelve he was put in and I had to wait until the next year to be entered.

"What happened at home? How is Jocelyn?" Mitchell's anger faded as he started to accept how I got here.

"Oh, she's...she's better than ever." The fact that I had to break it to him that his favorite person in the world was dead took just as big of an impact on me as it would hit him.

"What was wrong with her?" Mitchell would not tolerate it for me to lie to him about Jocelyn's health.

"She's... She's... " I give him a hug as I burst into sobs. "I'm so sorry Mitch! I'm so sorry!" Mitch was what I used to call him when no one was around. He always told everyone that he hated it when someone called him that, but he was perfectly fine with me using it.

"What? She's not? She's not?" Mitch starts to cry as he caught on with what I was saying.

"She went into some sort of depression. She died four months later."

"She wasn't even a year old yet!" Mitch screamed with gruffness that I had never heard from him. "First they kill me, then Joce, and now you! NO! I will not let them take my girls again!" He screams into the darkness.

As he cries I think of what he just yelled, his girls. I get how he could call Joce his girl, but me? I like the feeling of being his girl. It is a feeling that I have never had before. I start to dose off onto his shoulder as he cry's. I don't want to sleep, but I let it take me over. I wake up next to Mitch with the sounds of the birds that sang all day yesterday. I look and see that he is still asleep. I decide to let him sleep longer, he needs it, he is so depressed at the moment. As I go and sit by the last embers of the fire Mitch wakes up to the worst alarm clock ever. It was a laugh.

It was President Snow.


	5. Chapter 5

**This has a few new details too, but the chapter isn't totally new**

I sit down and face the dying embers, their pink and purple shades starting to bleed away with the rising crimson. I want so badly to stay in this moment forever, I am with my best friend who I thought I had lost for good, we have no work, hunger, its just us in this perfect heaven.

I look to the side and see Mitchell's soft face as he sleeps; I see the lines of the depression and loneliness that he has faced here. He has had such a hard life. Our whole life we struggled to feed our family, keep them from getting sick, we also grew up in the poorest part of District 11.

District 11, living there is hard enough! We work fourteen hours a day under the hot sun, I worked in the trees and Mitch worked in the corn fields, and then we come home and have families to feed, we weren't allowed to take any of the food we had picked home, all food was to go to the capitol, my family was lucky enough to have enough space to make a small garden, others weren't so lucky, most people lived of the tessera that their children had signed up for.

Our district was the largest of them all, both in size and in population, therefore the rules were enforced with more intensity than any other district, we had ruthless Peacekeepers, they would kill a five year old for taking too many steps to the left. I always hated District 11, but within hours of coming to the capitol, I was almost begging to go back. No matter what strange color every ones hair was, or what new tattoo they had, all they wanted to do is watch me die, I could never like them.

As I start to lose myself in the memories of my home, the low rumble of the wicked laugh comes over the meadow. Mitchell sits up at the terrible sound; I jump to my feet and look around. Then the wind comes, its not a nice cool wind that one would enjoy on a hot summers day, this wind was harsh and smelled like artificial roses and blood. I turn and start to run from the wind, with Mitchell close at my heels.

He, being both taller and faster, pulls ahead of me and takes my hand. We run and run, then we run some more, with Mitch pulling my hand in front of me and urging me to run faster, but the wind and the laugh seems to stay. We don't get tired, we don't get hungry or thirsty, I don't know why but I want to get tired, I miss being... imperfect. We run for almost half the day, with the wind and laugh surrounding us. Mitch see's the tree I first found here, the Banyan. We scurry under the branches, then the laughing stops, followed closely by the wind.

I fall to the ground in a heap; I roll to my back and stretch out. "I really hate this place, Mitch" I say as he sits down next to me.

"So do I. That laugh was there before."

"What?"

"The laugh, it was here before, it scared me to death, but it wasn't near as bad as this time!" Mitch squints his eyes and looks to the sun. "I want to go home, Rue, lets find home."

"And how exactly do you suppose we do that?" I sit up and scrunch my knees to my chest. I notice the flowers that have miraculously stayed on this whole time and start to fiddle with a pink one at my ankle.

"Oh, I don't know! I just mean... this place has gotta end somewhere. If we find it, we can get out."

"But what if we find it and get separated?"

"We'll think of something." Mitch looks down from the sky and see's me playing with one of the flowers. "What are these?"

"I don't know, they just started to appear on me when I got her. They seem to be staying on pretty well."

"Their pretty. Your pretty."

"What?" I chuckle out. This is new; nothing has ever gone on between us in something other than a best friendly way.

"You listened to me. You changed. And you're and eye stealer." Sure enough when I looked down I was no longer the same Rue. My limbs were long and lean; I was mature, almost like Katniss. I reached up and felt my face, I could feel that my eyes were larger and my nose was smaller. I must have changed my eye color to something g like Mitch's because I've always loved them.

"Let's go!" I announce, not wanting to pursue the subject any longer.

"Ok! Let's go!" Mitch stands up and takes in our surroundings. "Any way looks as good as ever. Which way do you think we should start with?"

"Ummm..." I close my eyes and stick my hand in front of me, I start to spin really and I stop with my hand still in front of me. "That way," I say and start walking in the random direction that my hand just pointed to. This was going to be a long journey I could guess that. Mitch catches up to me, still laughing. A long journey, and an annoying one, no matter how good of friends Mitch and I are, he's still a teenage boy, and too much of an annoying thing is always... great fun.


End file.
